by Bif Naked
DEDICATION
This book is lovingly offered at the feet of my boyfriends and girlfriends, bandmates and crew members, record executives, managers, agents, friends, family, and animals who were all in the trenches with me, digging deep and fighting the good fight. You rule!
EPIGRAPH
The key to staying in the public eye, of course,
is the ability to continually fascinate and surprise.
—Maureen Orth,
The Importance of Being Famous
I say to women: get down in the dirt, in the realm of the senses. Fight for your territory, hour by hour. Take your blows like men.
—Camille Paglia,
Vamps & Tramps
But crushing truths perish from being acknowledged.
—Albert Camus,
The Myth of Sisyphus
CONTENTS
Dedication
Epigraph
Foreword: God Save Us from Geminis by Peter Karroll
Prologue
1. Miss Proud Canadian
2. Baby Gilmore Out of India
3. In the Canadian North
4. Kentucky
5. Hognose Snakes, Julie Lennox, and the Poole Family
6. A Trip to the Ice Cream Parlour
7. Dauphin
8. Pope John Paul II and Predators
9. The “Blush” Pill and the Photographer
10. Norman the Cabbie
11. The Peruvian
12. The Frat House Boy
13. The Chopin Café and Jungle Milk
14. Lola, Johnny Thunders, and Me
15. Gorilla Gorilla
16. The Wedding
17. Unexpected, Unprepared, and Undone
18. Choked
19. Chrome Dog
20. Heroin, My Heroine
21. Day Jobs
22. Bus Fever and the Famous Hollywood Director
23. Lola, the Hells Angels, and Me
24. Managers
25. Cruel Elephant
26. Europe and Best Ever Fever
27. The Columbia Hotel and Metallica
28. Bertie Baderschneider and Stories from the Motorway
29. The Colonel, the Driver, the Dogs, and Insanity
30. Sony—Lava Records, Quincy, and Peter
31. Anarchy, Rebellion, Empowerment, Growing Up
32. Rumours of My Bisexuality
33. Tony Blair—The Honeymoon
34. Superbeautifulmonster
35. Bodog Battle
36. The Man Who Married a Rock Star
37. Bif Naked Bride?
38. Year of the Tit
39. Annastasia Louisa Monalisa Molinare
40. My Fallen Man, My Mended Heart
41. Dr. Naked Was My Dad
Epilogue
Afterword by George Finch
Acknowledgements
Photos Section
About the Author
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
FOREWORD
God Save Us from Geminis by Peter Karroll
I WALKED THROUGH THE FRONT DOOR OF FIASCO BROS Recording Studios in New Westminster, British Columbia, where the walls of the reception area were covered in band posters, handbills, and musician wanted ads. The table just inside displayed a half dozen stacks of music publications, both local and national. I stopped in my tracks, picked up one of the publications, and stared at the full-page eleven-by-seventeen-inch photo on the front cover. “Bif Naked” it read in large print, with “Chrome Dog” in smaller print at the bottom. The young woman with black hair, large eyes, and tattoo work on her right arm was leaning on a table, head in hand, a glass of alcohol, an ashtray, and a café-style sugar dispenser in front of her. The oversized eyes stared out at me, and at that moment, unbeknownst to her, I became locked in the destiny of the artist professionally known as Bif Naked.
I walked into the studio and called the only person I knew in the Vancouver alternative-music scene, local soundman and road manager Mike Price.
“Mike, it’s Peter Karroll. Bif Naked—do you know her?”
“Of course I know Bif,” said Mike. “I’ve done sound for her band Chrome Dog.”
“Good. I need a number. I want to manage the band.”
That was the beginning of my journey with “the girl most likely to fail,” the one with the most incredible story, with all odds against her. She did not ask for it, she didn’t push it, market it, or sell it. Everyone who has met her, heard her music, come to her shows, and has been lucky enough to work with her, all of them have spread the word on her behalf. As her personal manager, guardian, bodyguard, and close friend, I have been continually surprised and amazed by her creative and academic potential, multiple personalities, and unstoppable humour, which she uses as her armour and weapons of self-defence.
Her life’s journey is etched in tattoo ink across her body, and conveyed by her ability to transform her life stories into song lyrics. She found her voice as a solo artist. When no labels wanted her, she and I partnered to create her personal record company HRM Records, and, at twenty-three years of age, she became an international recording artist on this label. Throughout a remarkable career, armed with her unique talent and instantly identifiable look, Bif captivated the imagination of audiences and media alike. She released ten albums and twenty-two videos, embarked on seemingly endless international tours, and took on several feature film and television roles, only to be knocked down with breast cancer at the age of thirty-seven. Bif would fight the battle for her life—and discover her passion for advocacy. Throughout the journey, what she cherished most of all is her own resilience, strength, and unfaltering relationships with fur children Annastasia the bichon frise, and Nick Naked, her Maltese poodle. It’s already been a long, winding road. This is Bif Naked’s story so far.
PROLOGUE
I HAVE BEEN WHAT MY FATHER REFERS TO AS A knucklehead for as long as I can remember. I was a born performer, and luckily for me, my parents recognized, encouraged, and celebrated this. I was enrolled in ballet, piano, art, and theatre lessons throughout my childhood, so perhaps it was only natural for me to find freedom from the strictness of home in music and, as it turned out, particularly in the subjective genre of punk. This, of course, was to my parents’ surprise, having raised me on hymns from both Hindu and Christian traditions. Little did they know that I was headed into a successful career spanning more than twenty-five years as a rock vocalist and would be able to thread and weave my art and passion for poetry into the cloth of this work, creating a life of intensity and joy as a female straight-edge skate punk in a world of hardcore male mentors and heroes. Dodging death by violence, misadventure, cancer, and chronic heartache, I remain committed to this life of gratitude and total optimism because of my limitless sense of humour, my yoga practice, and my complete faith in humanity, still undaunted and unchanged. I love life and I love all the shenanigans it provides.
ONE
Miss Proud Canadian
NOTHING EVER MATCHES ONE’S PRIDE IN ONE’S heritage. I should know. I am a proud Canadian.
I am an Indian-born, born-abroad Canadian (or like I enjoy saying, “I was born a broad”). I have been these two things for as long as my memory goes back. I learned my patriotism from my father—or at the very least, how to brag about it. He was an American who gave up his citizenship to become Canadian. My mother never did, and remained a Minnesota girl.
Shireen, my sister, was Indian, and because Heather was my parents’ “natural” child, she was American. I was the lone Canadian in the family. My parents made a point my entire life of introducing me to anyone and everyone as their “Canuck.” They identified me as this, and I have self-identified as a Canadian every single day I have been alive. I can’t imag
ine being anything else, no matter where I live.
Canada is my first love, or maybe my true love—or maybe Pierre Trudeau actually was. He was the prime minister when I was born and remained so until I was in my adolescence. Like many Canadian citizens, I had a crush on him. He was charismatic and good-looking, he had an unbeatable demeanour, and he had sex appeal. I wanted to be able to speak perfect French in case I ever had the chance to meet him. French was my best subject in school, second only to “boys.” Bien sûr.
Pierre Trudeau was worldly, chased women, knew artists, laureates, and writers, and was demonstrative. Trudeau gave people the finger, which was forbidden, like cussing, by my parents, and it only endeared him to me more. He was like a rebel political rock star, and I absolutely loved him. I used to daydream that I would live in Montreal like Pierre and Irving Layton did.
Irving was another crush of mine, and as a young teenager I read his books in bed and masturbated quietly in the dark. I collected his books feverishly—finding one was like finding treasure, or a gift from a secret lover. I was such a dreamer, and was happiest fantasizing that some lovely man read Irving Layton’s poetry to me while I lounged in the bath. And this was to happen every night for the rest of my life, or at least for a week in some filthy hotel in the Pigalle district of Paris. A man who was a younger version of artist-director Julian Schnabel would be perfect. I read that Schnabel had a bathtub installed in the middle of his bedroom so he could watch his beautiful wife bathe. This idea has burned into my mind and as a result prevented any man from ever winning me over completely if his idea of romance is anything less. I was a pure romantic and remain so to this day.
Because my father so loved Canada, he defected from America, much to the chagrin of his family. He loved Canada even more than I do. He used to joke that God talked to him through the CBC, and although I didn’t believe this as a child, I believe it now. My father loved to pontificate, debate, and bestow his expertise through his constant advice giving and preaching of grand ideologies. I get my knack for this from him. My manager, Peter Karroll, nicknamed me “Bif Clavin,” after the great know-it-all Cliff Clavin, from the TV show Cheers. I can convince anyone that I am an expert on almost any subject, no matter what. And if I make a statement with enough conviction, I often convince myself that it is true.
I am greatly influenced by my sweet, quiet mother. She is not the type of person to bring attention to herself. A saint, and a perfect example of kindness, grace, and femininity, she lives for the happiness of others. She would make a great Buddhist. She does make a great Christian, and I’m sure the Hindus and Krishnas would love to have her. Trust me, I’m Bif Clavin, I know these things.
Jeanette McCracken, my mother, was born in Hibbing, Minnesota, and had two siblings who were both ten years her senior. She went to high school with Bob Dylan but was too shy to say hello to him, and besides, in high school he wasn’t famous yet. My mother says that, as a child, she was rarely spoken to by her parents. Her father worked all day, and when he came home to their rural house retreated to his room, coming out only for meals with the family. Most of the meals were eaten in silence. I wonder a lot about my mom’s childhood in Hibbing. It must have been a lonely existence.
My maternal grandmother, Selena, was always talkative around us grandkids, especially after my grandfather passed away. Selena had a laugh that I still sometimes hear in my sleep all these years later, shrill yet beautiful, like scream-laughing, and once you heard it, you couldn’t help but laugh at the absurdity and joy of the noise. She smelled of roses, and all her bathroom soaps were roses, which I hated—they stunk. It’s funny, though, that now I wear rose-scented perfumes, embracing my childhood memories and the family love the scent holds for me.
My grandfather Oscar was a railway engineer who drove the trains in the open-pit iron-ore mines—steam engines, then diesels, he drove them all. When he was younger he was a firefighter, one of the extension-ladder guys. But then he came home one night from work and didn’t speak for several days, not a word. He finally confessed to Selena that several firefighters had been killed in a fire. He decided then and there that he needed to change jobs. My grandfather never had alcohol in the home—when Oscar was a small boy, his father had let the family down because of alcohol. I don’t think my grandfather ever laughed; he was a quiet, thoughtful, serious man. As young children, we were afraid of the strange bump on his ear; we often stared at it. It was a growth that he had had since he was little, and he told us that God put it there so he would never be lost: it was such a distinctive, identifying mark that people who saw it would know for sure he was Oscar.
My father, Dr. Ken Torbert, loved to tell stories of his and his three brothers’ boyhood shenanigans. They were preacher’s kids getting into preacher’s kid mischief. He grew up loud, was never shy or quiet, completely the opposite of my mother. I believe that I am the perfect blend of them both, though this is entirely environmental, as I have zero genetic links to them.
My parents were good Methodist children, both members of the Wesley Foundation University of Minnesota, and thoroughly involved in the United Methodist Church groups. They met at university. My mother was studying nursing and working as a nurse’s aide in a Masonic hospital, where she dealt exclusively with cancer patients. She loved her studies but quickly realized that she loved the work she was doing with the patients—she was in the trenches with them. She decided she did not want to become a registered nurse and leave what she was doing. It seems a bit odd to me, as her daughter, to be now living an almost parallel experience.
My father’s first year at university was so disappointing for him that he decided to volunteer for the army. He believed that serving in the military was exactly the self-discipline he needed to get serious about his studies. He claimed he needed an attitude adjustment and so set out to give it to himself. He returned to his studies, and after taking all manner of courses, from Spanish to Russian history, finally received his degree, in zoology, and was accepted into dental college.
Zorah Torbert, my father’s mother, was a beautiful woman with blonde curls of hair and little horn-rimmed glasses, as was the style of the day. I can still picture her vividly. We kids sometimes spied on her as she gave herself insulin injections. Every morning, she did the injections on her bed, her dress up, the needle into her blue-mottled leg hanging over the edge of the bed. Her name was Zorah, but my older cousins called her Zorro, and so I did as well. Grandmother Zorro was a lifetime member of the WCTU—the Women’s Christian Temperance Union—and was very much opposed to alcohol or any other intoxicating substance.
My parents were both brought up in homes without alcohol, and they in turn kept it out of their home during their lives together. They were married in 1960 in a small church wedding filled with hope and their faith in God. How they came to decide to embark on a missionary trip to India I will never know for sure, but I believe they were probably just asked and thought it would be a great adventure.
They were extremely interested in and participated in the Civil Rights Movement, and were the only two people to accompany their pastor on the legendary march on Washington, where they heard Dr. Martin Luther King speak to the crowd at the Lincoln Memorial. They sat on the edge of the nearby reflecting pool and dangled their feet into the water as they listened to his words. My dad retold the story often, always marvelling at how positive everyone’s energy was there. My parents both stood behind non-violent protest and encouraged this in others. My dad told me, “When we listened to Dr. King, it was so good. The words from his mouth were all you could hear, it was powerful and loving. I just thought, ‘Right on, man! Right on!’”
My parents could not have known then that it was such a historic moment. All they knew was that they were united with Dr. King. The Civil Rights Movement continued to inspire and draw them. The year 1965 was a time of great struggle in America, and my parents were deeply involved in the efforts of non-violent activism. There was a call to action—for religious
leaders and other citizens to join in another peaceful march for freedom—by none other than Martin Luther King himself.
Activists, including those with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, who had been campaigning for African-American voting rights faced abuse, arrest, and much brutality. My dad and eight other men departed immediately for Selma, Alabama. My father was honoured to work with the committees, the young lieutenants, and the other young men, and marched with them from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. He felt privileged and wanted very much to stand with his fellow human beings. He admitted to me later that he was happy to be in solidarity with the marchers but was afraid of the white troopers who called him a “white nigger” and threatened the protestors.
My dad was afraid for his life, as he knew men had died, some actually murdered by the very law officers and sheriff’s deputies who had sworn to protect. He was trembling inside but he never flinched, and despite what the deputies might do to him, he was not leaving. He just prayed to God.
A few months after their involvement in the Civil Rights Movement, my parents prepared for their trip to India on behalf of the United Methodist Church mission, and which was to include Hindi language studies. Eventually, they embarked on a boat journey across the Atlantic. It took weeks to reach the Indian Ocean. My parents were both seasick during the trip, but it was much worse for my dad, as he also had an allergic reaction to the mangos he ate on the boat. He suffered miserably the entire journey.
Upon arriving in India, my father began teaching at Christian Medical College in Bareilly, a city with a world-renowned mental health facility. To tell someone you were from Bareilly was to be met with riotous laughter and lots of teasing. My parents lived in a house provided for them there. They had a cook, a housekeeper, two dachshunds (Dinah and Schroder), and tiger lilies all over the property. My mother’s nickname was Tiger, after the lily, a contrast with her personality, which was modest and had a quiet loveliness to it always. She primarily helped out at the local nursery and ashram.